First Impressions
by Kalila1221
Summary: Bella gets paired up with a gorgeous but hostile partner for math at her new college. Is he really a jerk, or is there a good reason for his anger? Rated M for later chapters.


I opened the door to my new dorm room with no small amount of trepidation. I knew the name of my new roommate, Alice Brandon, as well as her favorite color ("pink"), favorite movie ("Clueless") and favorite author (John Green). All of this had been supplied in the short bio I had received about her from the school. Other then that, I knew almost nothing about the person with which I would be living for the next year of my life.

As the door swung fully open, I was suddenly tackled by a blur of a person.

"Helloooo! You must be Bella! I'm Alice, your roommate. I already know we're gonna be great friends!," said the blur in an almost shrill voice while giving me a bear hug.

I took a step back and was able to take in my new roommate. She was short, about 5'2", with a dark brown eyes, a wide smile, and dark hair in a pixie haircut that would have looked awful on almost any other girl I knew but somehow worked on her. She had on a light blue shirt with ruffles and a short black skirt with knee-high boots. Altogether, she was very pretty, in an unconvential sort of way.

At that moment someone behind her cleared their throat. "Ahem, Alice, if you're all done clobbering the new girl, can we get a move on? The movie will start soon."

This came from a stunning girl behind Alice that I had not yet noticed due to Alice's enthusiastic hug. Tall and slim, with long wavy blond hair, lilac blue eyes, full lips, and a very ample chest that was emphasized by her form fitting black dress, she was every guy's dream.

Great. I'd been in this state for only a few hours and already I was once again standing out for my looks, but not in a good way. I thought that with pale skin, dark brown hair and eyes and an all around average body, I would fit in more here in Oregon than I did in Phoenix, but that was obviously not the case.

Alice turned to her companion. "Oh, Bella, this is my friend Rosie Hale. Well, Rosalie", she amended, at a glare from Rosalie. I nodded at Rosalie, and she gave a cold glare back. "I guess we had better get going," Alice continued, apparently unaware of her friend's hostility. "Bella, do you want to join us? We're going to see 'The Fault in Our Stars'."

I knew from the look on Rosalie's face that I would not be welcome, so I declined.

"It's ok, I need to get unpacked. I take it this side is mine?", I conjectured, jerking a thumb at the side of the room that was not covered in pink and posters of various of movie stars.

"Yup. I was going to wait for you to get here to decide which side to take, but I couldn't wait that long, and besides, I thought you would want the side with the bigger window to get sun since you're from Phoenix. Well, a little bit of sun, anyway; it mostly rains here," Alice replied, seeming a little embarrassed that she had chosen sides without me.

I was touched that she had thought to give me the side with a large window. Maybe having a roommate- albeit a hyperactive and pink loving one- wouldn't be so bad after all.

I thanked Alice and began moving my luggage to my side of the room as Alice and Rosalie made their way out of the room, Alice with a cheery "See you later, Bella!" and Rosalie with a barely audible "Bye."

I made my bed with the purple sheet, pillowcase and blanket set my dad Charlie had picked out for me, him thinking it was still my favorite color. In fact, I had left behind any enthusiasm for it at about the age of 12. Still, since I hadn't lived with my dad long-term since I was 2, he could be forgiven for thinking I still liked it. He had wanted to accompany me to the college when I moved in, but work had called him in and I assured him that I would be find on my own. I wouldn't have minded some accompaniment to my new college, Portland State University, but I figured as an incoming junior I should be able to do some things on my own.

I put my clothes in the small closet on my side of the room. I didn't have many pieces of clothing, mainly t-shirts and cardigans in earth colors and pairs of jeans I had purchased in anticipation of my move to Portland. It wasn't raining yet, thank goodness, but that didn't mean I could let my guard down. The clouds outside the window looked ominous.

I hadn't wanted to move to one of the rainiest cities in the U.S., but with my mom's new marriage I had felt it was time for a change in scenery. Her new husband Phil was nice enough but I did not want to be a third wheel in their honeymoon phase. Besides, I missed my dad, even if I did not miss the gloomy city he chose to call home.

I finished tidying up my things, stuffed my suitcases at the bottom of my closet, and called both my parents to let them know everything was well. I then decided to turn in for the day, as I did not want to have to deal with Alice's energy and the bonding I knew she would most likely want to engage in when she got back.

The week that was left before classes started flew by in a blur of purchasing supplies for school, getting dragged to welcome events by Alice, and walking around trying to get a feel of the campus.

Before I knew it, it was the morning of classes. I selected a tan sweater with a dark pair of jeans and dark brown boots. There. Not too flashy, simple, will keep me warm. Well, it was time to put what little knowledge I had of the campus to the test.

I found my first class, an honors writing seminar, without too much trouble. I liked the professor, and got on sort-of friendly terms with an overeager guy named Mike Newton. He was kind of cute, in a puppy-dog kind of way. A few hours later, I had my first statistics (or "stats" as everyone seemed to call it) lecture class, and then a stats "recitation" class, where we were supposed to practice statistics and got graded on a pass/no pass basis. Secretly, I was thankful for this class, because math was not my strong suit and I had heard mixed things about the difficulty of the subject.

Stats recitation was in a small classroom on the second floor of Cramer hall. I opened the door to the class and spotted one girl who had introduced herself to me in the lecture class, a "Jessica" or something. She waved and smiled at me. Unfortunately, all the seats near her were taken, so I settled for a seat near the door. I had just begun arranging my supplies on the desk when the door banged open and the most beautiful guy I had ever seen strode into the class and took a seat on the opposite side of the class from me, unaware of the ruckus he had caused entering.

I took in his features greedily, as nearly every other girl in the class did the same. Deep green eyes. Large eyebrows that accentuated his eyes. A nice slender nose. Luscious, rosey lips. And oh.. that hair. Bronze, ruffled just so.

I sighed. Guys that looked like him never went for girls that looked like me. They went for the Rosalies. Gorgeous girls with horrible personalities. I should just forget about him. But… there was no harm in looking, right?

I jumped a bit as the woman at the front of the class began to speak. "Looks like everyone's here now. Alright, I'm Amy Hawthorne, and I will be your T.A. for this class. I'm a graduate student in mathematics. As you know, this is Statistics Recitation and it will be graded on a pass/no pass basis. As long as you show up to class and do the worksheets I hand out, you'll be fine. I'll mainly just be here to provide help if you need it. Before we get started, we need to pick partners. These people will be the person you work on every assignment with for the rest of the term. Normally, other T.A.s would let your pick your partners, but I want to mix things up a bit." A few people groaned quietly." That's right, we will be picking your partners randomly. I put the names of half of the members of this class in this bowl and the other half will come up one by one and pick a name out," she explained, brandishing a large silver mixing bowl.

Amy began reading out the names of every other person on the class roster, and the person would shuffle forward, read out a name, and then go and stand beside their partner to wait for the rest of the names to be called. I cringed, waiting for the beautiful man to be paired with a partner. It would probably be Jessica, with my luck. I had seen her looking at him like she was mentally undressing him. Ew.

I looked up in surprise as my name was called by Amy to come to choose a name. Almost all of the people in the class were already in partner groups, except me, the beautiful guy, and four others. I did not let myself acknowledge who I was hoping to pick out of the bowl. I closed my eyes, grabbed the first paper I touched, and opened my eyes to peek at the name. "Edward Cullen," I read aloud. Amy motioned for me to go join the man I had been staring at, and I almost dropped my paper in disbelief. I could not decide if a semester of me being able to embarrass myself in front of an incredibly hot guy was a good thing or a bad thing.

Realizing I was taking too long to move, I quickly scurried over to hover behind Edward's chair as the last few names were called. Amy began passing out worksheets to each person and I steadied my nerves before I gave a quick peek at my partner.

I was startled at the look of extreme fury Edward was giving me. I quickly scooted my chair back and looked away from his angrily contorted features. How had I managed to piss this guy off so quickly? This was going to be a long semester.


End file.
